Novel hydrogel sticks at task of repairing soft tissue

27 November 2018

Different shaped examples of the novel hydrogel. Photo: Alain Herzog/EPFL.

Researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed a hydrogel – made up of nearly 90% water – that naturally adheres to soft tissue like cartilage and the meniscus. If the hydrogel carries repair cells, it could help damaged tissue to heal.

Some types of body tissue, like cartilage and meniscus, have little or no blood supply and are unable to heal if damaged. One promising approach to this problem is to inject a hydrogel loaded with repair cells or drugs into the damaged area in the hope of stimulating tissue regeneration.

Commercial hydrogels, however, do not stay put after being applied to the treatment area, as result of pressure from the body’s movements and the flow of bodily fluids. Doctors therefore use special membranes to keep the hydrogel in place, yet those membranes are attached with sutures that perforate the very tissue the hydrogel is supposed to heal.

Two EPFL research groups, led by Dominique Pioletti and Pierre-Etienne Bourban, have now created a biocompatible hydrogel that naturally adheres to soft tissues like cartilage and meniscus. Their hydrogel, which is almost 90% water, can withstand mechanical stresses and extensive deformation, and thus eliminates the need for a separate binding process. The groups report their research in a paper in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

“Our hydrogel is 10 times more adhesive than currently available bioadhesives on the market such as fibrin,” says Pioletti, head of the Laboratory of Biomechanical Orthopedics in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “And thanks to its high water content, our hydrogel is very similar in nature to the natural tissue it’s designed to heal.”

The new hydrogel is actually a composite material consisting of a double-network matrix of covalently cross-linked polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate and ionically cross-linked alginate, reinforced with nanofibrillated cellulose. This structure preserves the material’s strong adhesive capacity by blunting the impact of mechanical stresses.

“The double network structure distributes incoming mechanical energy throughout the hydrogel, so that the material shows adhesion improvement when it is compressed or stretched,” says Pioletti. “In hydrogels that lack these damping mechanisms, the mechanical stresses are concentrated on the interface between the hydrogel and the tissue, and the hydrogel comes off quite easily.”

Martin Broome, who heads the Oral and Maxillo-Facial Surgery Department at the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) and is a co-author of the article, is convinced that this type of hydrogel could make a real difference. “If we build on the hydrogel’s remarkable adhesive properties, that could open the door to a large number of potential applications,” he says. “One day, for example, it might be used in place of metallic materials like titanium to set bone fractures. More immediately, we may no longer need to use complex sutures on some types of soft tissue.”

In its current form, the hydrogel developed at EPFL can adhere to several types of tissue. The next step for the researchers will be to tailor it to specific applications. “Now that our material has demonstrated its superior mechanical properties, we are going to work on loading it with different agents that could help heal a patient’s cartilage or meniscus,” concludes Pioletti.

This story is adapted from material from EPFL, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier. Link to original source.

About Materials Today

Materials Today is a community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience. Supported by Elsevier, we publish high impact peer-reviewed journals, organize academic conferences, broadcast educational webinars and so much more.

Contact Us

We want to hear from you. We’re here to support the creation and sharing of information: if there’s something we aren’t doing, or something we could do better, let us know. We grow through your comments and ideas.